I had not fallen so far from my past that I didn’t understand him, and what he said made sense to me, but the rest of the family begged him to stop. They begged him to keep quiet, for his own safety and for theirs. He was still young, they told him, he could still settle down, take a wife and live a comfortable life away from everything. They had missed him, they said, and no one had ever forgotten his place here.
But he was not the same confused boy that had left with those strange men. His eyes no longer held that ultimate questioning. He had discovered his path in life, and he meant to share it. He smiled at them with pity and shook his head. A feeling of dread washed over me, and I wasn’t sure where it would lead.
By nightfall everyone had gone home, and Yeshua accepted my offer to house him for the night. There was still no sign of Yehuda, but the twin seemed unconcerned over his brother’s fate. He took his leave of me, stepping outside, and I gave him his space.
Rachel, my wife, took my hand as I sat at the table feeling helpless to prevent what I was sure to be a violent oncoming storm. “You and Yehuda spoke so much of him, but he wasn’t what I expected.”
I let out a small laugh and shook my head. “Nor I, my love. He’s changed.”
“You’re afraid for him.”
I closed my eyes and let myself feel that dread, that dark fear looming over me, just for a moment. “I’m afraid for all of us. I think this is going to signal a change that none of us wanted, and I don’t know how to stop it.”
She stared at me for a long time, her large eyes sad and worried. Eventually she sighed, pressed a kiss to my cheek and rose. “I’m going to sleep now. Come to bed soon.”
But I didn’t. I sat there for hours, until the deep night fell, and the entire village went quiet. I realized that Yeshua was still outside, so I ventured out and saw him sitting cross-legged beside the wall of the house. His eyes were closed, but his mouth curved up into a smile when I approached.
“I hope you weren’t up waiting for me,” he said, his eyes opening slowly.
I shook my head and gave a little sigh. “I was hoping your brother would come home. I’m sure you expected a warmer welcome from him.”
“I expected nothing less than what he gave,” Yeshua said with a shrug. “I always hoped he would have forgiven me, but I didn’t expect it. My brother has always been angry, and leaving him the way I did, I didn’t expect any favorable reactions.”
“He still loves you, you know,” I said. I took the liberty of sitting down near him, not too close, however, as something about him unnerved me. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but he was more than changed by philosophy and religion. “I think he was mostly shocked.”
“Shock is a fair word for what he’s feeling,” Yeshua said. He looked up at the sky and I joined him. It was clear, and the blanket of stars never ceased to amaze me, the heavens shining so bright with specks of light that I thought sometimes there would be no need for a sun. “I expect angry words when he returns.”
“Do you really plan to leave again?” I asked him, hoping to persuade him to stay for just a little while longer. “Everyone missed you, and you might find yourself comfortable here once you get used to the differences.”
He looked at me for a moment, the smallest of smiles on his face. “This coming from you, Makabi? The wanderer? The Roman with no home? You’ve been here for most of your life now, and still you’re not comfortable. You don’t belong.”
That stung because he had spoken the absolute truth, and I felt tears prickle in the corners of my eyes. I had never fully belonged anywhere. The child of two worlds, lost in between them, and now here I was talking to this man I didn’t understand, yet he seemed to understand me exactly. “I’m happy.”
“You’ve conceded to this fate,” he corrected me. “You don’t have to, you know. You could come with me.”
“Rachel is expecting again,” I said, but truthfully, it was more fear of leaving yet another home that kept me in place. “I can’t leave her.”
He shook his head and gave a small chuckle, but didn’t argue with me. He took a deep breath and bowed his head. “There is no place like the deep desert, Makabi. The feel of rough sand on your feet, the dry, harsh air along the skin. There’s a certain beauty to it, one I will always treasure. My journey here is going to be short and painful, but worth it.”
“What’s changed you?” I finally asked. The question was burning inside of me and I had to know.
“It wasn’t just my path following The Buddha that changed me,” he said after a few moments. “There’s something with me, something inside of me, waiting to awaken. I’ve had dreams, Makabi. Strange dreams, of my fate, my path, and the future of you and my brother. I’m not sure what it means, but I was drawn here, and the two of you are going to take a journey with me.”
He rose at that moment, giving me no time to respond to him. Extending a hand, he helped me rise to my feet and we brushed the dust from our clothes. “So what now?” I asked, thinking of nothing else to say.
“I have to seek out my cousin Yochanan. He, too, has studied with the monks, and I have something to give him. After that, I cannot say. Our paths are set, Makabi, and every step takes us on them. We still have a lot to learn, but there are beautiful things waiting for us at the end.”
He left me standing there, confused, afraid, and full of absolute wonder. There was something in his voice that made me believe him, and as I lay down inside next to my wife, I felt how absolutely temporary it all was. This life was just a costume, a show I had put on in my desperation to belong, and right then, in that very moment, I knew it was going to change.
Chapter Sixteen
When Ben pulled into the parking lot, he saw Alex and Stella off in the distance, walking swiftly towards the hotel room. He wasn’t surprised that they’d beat him; he had been distracted while he was driving and had missed the turn twice. Everything felt like it was spinning out of control again, and Ben was desperate to keep everything in order. When there was chaos, mistakes happened, and people got hurt or killed. Ben wanted this rescue to run smoothly, without losing anyone important to him.
He got out of the car, wincing at the sound of the door slamming in the quiet evening, and he marched toward the hotel room, not sure what awaited him. There was a plan forming in Alex’s mind, that much was obvious, and Ben was ready for some sort of strategy to get Mark and Judas free from wherever they were being kept. Cohesive strategy was what his group had sorely lacked during the previous attempted rescue, and it resulted in destruction and death. Ben wouldn’t allow that this time around.
Giving himself one last, quiet moment in the still night air, Ben took a deep breath of the ocean breeze and with a renewed sense of purpose, he pushed open the door and saw Alex, Stella and an exhausted but conscious Andrew waiting for him.
As Ben slowly shut the door, Andrew gave a little cough and said, “Your friend is back,” in a hoarse whisper.
Ben frowned, turning to look at Andrew who nodded to Stella. Ben’s eyes snapped over to Stella, who was sitting in the chair near the window, and she gave him a sheepish smile. “Evening.”
The strange, hard tone had been replaced with Stella’s somewhat husky, but gentler voice and Ben almost collapsed with relief. True, he didn’t trust her yet, but Andrew and Alex both seemed somewhat at ease, and that was enough for Ben to allow himself some measure of peace in that situation.
“Are you okay?” was the first thing Ben blurted, surprising himself a little bit. He crossed the room and sat on the bed directly across from her so he could look her in the face. Her features were softened, her expression lighter. He wasn’t completely positive, but he was almost certain she wasn’t faking the personality switch.
“I’m fine. I’m sorry, it was necessary that I let her take control for a while,” Stella said, sounding like she truly meant the apology.
Ben glanced over at Alex who shrugged, and then looked back. “Can you tell me who she is?”
; Stella shifted uncomfortably, her eyes lowering away from Ben’s face, and she gave her head a shake. “I swear to you, once we get Mark and Jude, and we have this situation under control, I’ll tell you everything. Right now I’m being followed. It’s probably a stupid idea being with you three, but right now I didn’t have a choice. These two are capable of protecting me, which is probably why he hasn’t made a move yet.”
“He who?” Ben asked, feeling more and more agitated the less information he was given. How did she expect him to protect her if she wasn’t willing to share any information?
“He’s one of them, in league with Nike,” Stella said. “Who he is isn’t as important as making sure we do what we can to cloak ourselves from him. Can you two help with that?”
“Not my area,” Alex said with a shrug.
“I’ll do what I can,” Andrew murmured, still clearly in physical duress, “but I’m feeling a little incapacitated at the moment.”
“Fine,” Ben snapped, trying to keep ahold of his temper. “What I want to know is, what are we going to do about Mark? They’ve had him for way too long now. It’s possible that Nike’s already got what she was after and they’ve moved on.”
“If that was the case, believe me, we’d know,” Stella put in. “She’s after massive power, and we’d have felt the shift if she’d gotten what she wanted Mark for. Besides, she needs Jude still, just like before. She needs to siphon his power into a human, so she’s not going to be looking to get rid of them right away.”
“But we’re still just sitting here,” Ben stressed. “We’ve been in this hotel for an entire day doing nothing, just mentally jerking off while those two are probably being viciously tortured, and we know where they are.”
“Well what would you like us to do, Ben?” Alex asked, sounding more irritated than she had before. “Go in, guns blazing, take her out and drag those two back home? What is that going to accomplish?”
“Our goal,” Ben said with a sneer. “Isn’t it? Isn’t this the whole point?”
“Isn’t that what you did last time?” Andrew put in. “That didn’t quite work out so well, did it?”
“You do realize that Nike is still inside of your sister, don’t you?” Alex added, which made Ben freeze. His face went cold as Alex continued, “Are you willing to kill her a second time to get Mark and Jude out of that building?”
Ben swallowed thickly, trying to divorce himself from his emotions and the hope that they were telling the truth. “Neither one of you has produced any real evidence that my sister is still alive. For all we know, Nike went and found herself some brain-dead look-alike and is using her to try and get to me.”
“She’s actively hiding from you because she knows you could stop her, especially if you knew that your sister could still be saved,” Alex interjected. “I’m sorry Ben, but we need to make a cautious plan about this. We need to save Mark and Judas, and we can’t let another ten buildings go up in flames to do it.”
Ben let out a breath and walked to the small sink near the bathroom. He splashed cold water on his face, trying to calm himself down. He couldn’t let this be about Abby. If he let this be about Abby, things would go wrong. Again. He couldn’t live through another disaster like the cult compound had been. He’d barely been able to keep his sanity together after that, and right now he was teetering on the edge of absolute madness.
“So what do you suggest?” Ben asked, walking back into the room as he pat his face dry with a small hand towel. “We know the address, we can safely assume that the building is peopled with vessels of all shapes and sizes and various powers. We can definitely assume that they probably have something rigged to blow us the hell up if we set foot in there. So what do you suggest?”
“Logically the first thing we should do is stake the place out,” Stella said, contributing for the first time. “We can assume all of these things, but if we don’t get close enough we won’t have anything to go on. Technically we could raise the alarm and call in the damn swat team, but I think she’d be able to get away with Mark and Jude, and the last thing we need is a false alarm and dead civilians.”
Ben nodded and crossed his arms, leaning against the dresser. He stared at the trio for a few moments, letting his brain spin around with the information. Stella was right, they had no hard facts to go on, just assumptions based on what they had experienced last time. Stella was clearly being followed, so the last thing they needed on the stake out was company… or Nike to become alerted that they knew where she was.
“Alex, you come with me,” Ben said. “We’ll take my car and drive over there and you can try and sense how many there are in the building and how strong they are. You said yourself if they’re Greeks we can better defend ourselves because their powers have far more limits.”
“And I’m supposed to just sit here and what? Pray you don’t get attacked and killed by that bitch?” Stella asked, half-rising from her chair. “Absolutely not, Stanford.”
“You’re being tailed, Stella,” Ben said sharply. “Like it or not, you’re going to stay with the junkie who can, at least for now, protect you from whoever is chasing you. It’s the only option we’ve got, and I’m afraid I’m taking charge now. Mark and Jude got into this mess because I refused to listen to them. This is it. We’re making our move and you’re going to follow my orders.”
Stella’s face reddened but she lowered herself back down onto the chair, crossing her legs and looking put out. Ben glanced over at Alex, silently asking for a moment alone, and she obliged, leaving the room, the door closing with a quiet click.
Ben glanced over to see Andrew’s eyes had slipped shut, so he crossed the room and knelt beside Stella’s chair. “I realize you’ve lied to me, and whether or not it was to protect me, those lies may have kept me from being able to do my job. I’m not going to punish you for that anymore, but from this point on, I need you to let me take charge. I’m not going to ask you to come clean, that’s your choice, but as long as you’re refusing to give me all of the information, I can’t trust you.”
She gave a nod, her face tight with the pain his words caused, but it was clear she understood his reasoning. “I’m sorry Ben. I wish things were different.”
“And maybe they will be, but we have to get ourselves out of this situation before we can even think about that. I care about you, and I want to protect you. So just listen to me, sit tight, and I’ll do what I can.”
Without warning, Stella reached out, grabbed Ben by the front of his shirt and kissed him hard. Ben was too startled to fully respond, but he didn’t push her away. He put his hands on the side of her face as the kiss broke and pressed his forehead to hers. “Take care, okay. Please,” she whispered.
He nodded, still pressed to her warm skin, and he took a deep breath of her perfume. It was all true. He did care about her. He wanted to work things out. He wanted her to come clean be honest with him, and trust him with the information. He could love her, he knew he could, and when this was over he planned to explore that thought.
Ben rose, glancing at her one last time before he slipped out the door and headed to his car where Alex waited. He unlocked the doors with the press of the button on the keys and together they slid into the seats. It was chilly now, so Ben turned on the heater as he pulled out of the parking lot and onto the busy street, saying nothing until they reached the entrance to the freeway.
“Do you think we’re being followed?”
Alex closed her eyes a moment, took a few deep breaths, and then shook her head. “No. I think we’ve slipped away unnoticed. Whoever is concerned with Stella isn’t concerned with us.”
“Did they know she was with us?”
“Possibly,” Alex said. “I felt something earlier, but it was brief. Either way, Andrew can protect her and I think she knows well enough to stay inside the hotel room. This shouldn’t take long to figure out how many are inside, and once we do that, we can go and get Andrew. He’ll be well enough to provide some back up, and t
he moment we have a clearing, we’ll go and get Mark and Judas.”
Ben nodded, breathing in and out long and slow, trying to keep his adrenaline down until he needed it. With Alex directing the way, Ben was able to pull a few hundred yards away from the abandoned building, keeping it in sight while being as inconspicuous as possible.
A silence fell between them as Ben switched off all of the lights and they peered down the empty street. It seemed that all of the buildings there were being renovated or rebuilt. There were massive bins outside of each one with long tubes where the old insides of the buildings were being thrown out. The street was covered in dust and trash, and showed big, black tire marks from machines working during the day.
“Can you sense anything?” Ben whispered.
Alex shook her head, letting out a frustrated sigh. “They’re either cloaked, or we’re just not close enough. I may need to get out and move a little bit closer so I can get some idea of what we’re dealing with.”
“Don’t you think that would be unnecessarily dangerous?” Ben asked.
“For you,” Alex said. “Stay here and I’m going to see what I can see. If anything happens Ben, you run.”
As she started to push open the door, Ben grabbed her, shoving her back into the seat. “You may have forgotten, Alex, but you’re in the body of a really nice girl who didn’t ask for any of this, so I have no intention of running if anything happens. I’m not going to let her get maimed or killed because you don’t bother to remember that the person you’re inside isn’t just a piece of clothing.”
Alex fixed him with a hard gaze, looking angry, but when she spoke, there was respect in her tone. “I have never, nor will I ever, treat a vessel as a piece of clothing. I can handle my own, and protect myself, but I can’t guarantee that I’ll be able to protect you. Your best option is to wait here while I do what I can to see how many are inside and what we’re up against. And Ben, like it or not, right now you’re more important than Olivia, and if I have to choose between the two of you, I’m going to choose you. You need to accept that now, before we go any further.”
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